either in person or by reputation. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.” Wolfgang was delighted, but declared at the same time that it was only from Haydn that he had learned how to write string quartets. And the half-dozen he issued in 1785 and dedicated with moving phrases to his “beloved friend Haydn” are doubtless among the finest he composed. On the other hand, Mozart never permitted a derogatory word to be said in his presence about Haydn. And when the Bohemian composer and pianist, Leopold Kozeluch, once said to Mozart on hearing a boldly dissonant passage in a Haydn quartet: “I would never have written that,” Mozart instantly retorted: “Nor would I! And do you know why? Because neither you nor I would have had so excellent an idea.... Sir, even if they melted us both together, there would still not be stuff enough to make a Haydn.” When some years later Haydn was asked his opinion about a debated passage in “Don Giovanni” he answered with finality: “I cannot settle this dispute, but this I know: Mozart is the greatest composer that the world now possesses!” And hearing an argument about the harmony in the beginning of Mozart’s C major Quartet Haydn put a stop to the controversy then and there by saying: “If Mozart wrote it so he must have had good reason for it.” And when someone in Prague invited Haydn to write an opera for that city he declined on the ground—among other things—that he “would be taking a big risk, for scarcely any man could stand comparison with the great Mozart. Oh, if I could only explain to every musical friend ... the inimitable art of Mozart, its depth, the greatness of its emotion, and its unique musical conception, as I myself feel and understand it, nations would then vie with each other to possess so great a jewel.... Prague ought to strive not merely to retain this precious man, but also to remunerate him; for without this support the history of any great genius is sad indeed. It enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some imperial or royal court. Do forgive this outburst but I love that man too much.”

* * *

It should not be imagined that the various operas of Haydn have anything like the vitality, the dramatic life or the quality of “theatre” we find in the stage works of Mozart. The greater part were composed for the play-house at Eszterháza and in certain cases for marionettes. Sometimes they were slender comedies, on the “Singspiel” order, sometimes masques, intermezzi, scenic cantatas. Possibly the two operas which in modern times have experienced most frequent revival are the comedy, “Lo Speziale” (“The Apothecary”) and “Il Mondo della Luna” (“The World of the Moon”).

His life at Eszterháza had the advantage of preserving Haydn from the intrigues and jealousies that ran riot in Vienna and from which even a Mozart had to suffer so bitterly. Yet without traveling far from Eisenstadt Haydn was now rapidly becoming widely famous. One of the first countries where he gained glory in distinguished circles was Spain. In 1779 his music was already becoming a subject of high-flown poetic praise. In 1781 King Charles III sent the composer a gold snuffbox. The secretary of the Spanish Legation went to Eszterháza in person to convey his sovereign’s esteem to Haydn, whose princely employer must have swelled with pride at such a lofty distinction so ceremoniously conferred upon his “servant”. The composer, Luigi Boccherini, a protégé of the Spanish king’s brother, strove so successfully to imitate Haydn’s style that someone called him “Haydn’s wife”. Perhaps the most important Spanish honor of all came from a canon of Cadiz for a work called “The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross”. Let us cite Haydn’s own words which preface the score published by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1801:

“About 1786 I was requested to compose instrumental music in ‘The Seven Last Words.’ It was customary at the Cathedral of Cadiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn obscurity. At midday the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and prostrated himself before the altar. The pause was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy matter to compose seven adagios to last ten minutes each, and succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself within the appointed limits.”

Haydn looked upon the composition as one of his most important and, as a matter of fact, it widely exercised a profound impression. It was even performed in the United States in 1793. When it came to paying Haydn for his work the Spanish ecclesiast presented the composer with a large sum of money concealed in an enormous chocolate cake! The “Seven Last Words” were, in the course of years, done by a string quartet, by an orchestra, as an oratorio. Today the work is hard to listen to with patience, impressive as it once seemed. A series of adagios, one much like the other, it has precisely the effect that the composer at first feared: the various movements as they succeed one another end by sorely “fatiguing the hearers”.

France and England, in their turn, presently developed unmistakable signs of Haydn worship, which progressed increasingly. In Italy the composer steadily won favor. The Philharmonic Society of Modena made him a member as early as 1780. Ferdinand IV, of Naples, a few years later ordered concertos for an instrument called the lira organizzata. The king wanted Haydn to visit Italy; the composer would have loved to do so, but could not leave Eszterháza. Frederick William II, of Prussia, who played the cello, sent Haydn a superb and costly diamond ring. We are told that he put on the ring whenever he began an important work because “when he forgot to do so no ideas occurred to him”. He also received a costly ring from his pupil, the Russian Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, whom he taught in 1782 in Vienna and for whom he composed numerous songs more than twenty years later. Then, in 1781, Haydn informed the Viennese publisher, Artaria, that “Monsieur Le Gros, director of the Concerts Spirituels in Paris, wrote me a great many nice things about my ‘Stabat Mater’ which had been given there four times with great applause.... They made me an offer to engrave all my future works on very advantageous terms.” In 1784 a Paris society, the Concerts de la Loge Olympique (patronized by French royalty, and where audiences were required to pass a kind of examination before they were admitted to its functions) commissioned Haydn to write six symphonies for them, to which solicitation we owe the composer’s great series of “Paris” Symphonies. Not only did French publishers now make profitable proposals to Haydn; in Luigi Cherubini, meanwhile, he had one of his most impassioned advocates in Paris.

Haydn could probably have gone to England and become associated with the musical life of that country much sooner than he did. When in 1783 the Professional Concerts were founded in London an attempt was made to secure him to take over their direction. The composer, not feeling that Prince Eszterházy would have given his